Re: [IRCA] DXpedition in outback Australia

[Stephen Hawkins <ng0g@xxxxxxxxx>]

Craig,

On Sunday 12 June 2005 18:25, Craig Edwards wrote:
> Hi Guys & Gals
>
> Well I've finally gotten around to writing up the report on my travelling
> outback DXpedition from Queensland to South Australia in March.
>
> It can be viewed at
> http://www.dxing.info/dxpeditions/northern_australia_2005_03.dx

Great stuff.  I really enjoyed it.  Attached is an article I just sold to QST 
for their on line ezine.  

Steve
-- 
73 49 111 01001001
Stephen Hawkins NG0G
ng0g@xxxxxxxx

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\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {I devoted a morning recently to converting the file from my old logging program to a format that I could import into my Linux based logging program.  Looking over the early contacts I suddenly realized that I have had my license for slightly over 25 years.  These early logs brought back a flood of great memories.  Like most Hams there have been some contacts, that for one reason of another, stood out above the others.   Mostly QSO's for new countries that were tough to work.  Ones where I did the "happy dance" all over the house like some deranged person.  I clearly remember working an HS0 on 20 CW for an all time new one, late, when the band was closing.  He was so faint and no one answered his CQ.  I threw in my call and heard it come back not in tones, but in barely detectable changes in the noise level.  For a minute I thought I imagined it, but no, there it was again, and the card came in the mail.  Happy Dance time.  Over the years, my wife has grown used to, lets say, "interesting behaviors" on my part and no longer even blinks, no matter what I do.   }
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {None of the contacts however, stand out as clearly as the first one.  It was a warm summer day and I was eating an ice cream cone when my license came in the mail.  Back then one had to go to the FCC to take the exam.  I had done this at 555 Battery Street in San Francisco, early one very foggy morning, and then I had to wait.  Wait for that ticket to come in the mail.  In my case this took over 8 very long weeks.  In the meantime I had purchased a Heathkit transceiver and put it together.   Now I was just waiting.}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {I lived at the time, in a 100 year old building that was once a "carriage house".  It was built on the side of a hill on the east side of San Franciso Bay.  The structure had survived the 1906 earthquake.  It was huge, and the access to the roof was though a door in the attic that was 12 feet above the attic floor.  A friend was coming over the following weekend with a tall ladder to help me put up an antenna.}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {On that morning of mornings, as I walked back from the store, eating my ice cream cone,  (a double scoop of Pralines and Cream,..funny how details surrounding important events stick in your mind), I passed my mail box and casually reached in for the mail.  For just a second my mind failed to grasp the importance of the envelope.  Who in the government could be writing me????  And why would they want to?  Out came my trusty pocket knife which made short work of opening it up.   One glance and I knew.  My heart nearly stopped.  N6BPL  I would like to say that hundreds of wonderful thoughts ran though my mind, but there was just one.  I have no ANTENNA yet.  }
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {Eating the rest of the ice cream cone in one huge bite, I jumped in my car and raced off to buy coax, connectors, and a balun.  Back at home I quickly made a 15 meter dipole.  The attic is huge, I thought,  I'll put up a dipole in the attic.  Standing in the hallway I stared up at the square wood cover to the entrance.  It was several feet above my head.  Quickly I dragged a handy antique table down the hall so that it was directly under the door.  Made by the "Reliable Table Company" in 1872, I thought to myself.  Reliable, eh, well then it should hold me.  Standing on the table, the entrance was still too high for me to climb into the attic.  I grabbed a wooden foot locker and placed it in the center of the table.  I then placed a kitchen chair on the top of the footlocker.  With hammer, nails, coax, dipole, and a flashlight, I climbed up until I stood on the seat of the chair.  Pushing the wood cover up into the attic, I threw everything in my arms up through the hole.  Grabbing the edges, I gave a jump and found myself waist high in the attic.  Swinging a leg up I scrambled in. }
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\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {Let me pause here for a moment to say a few words about the attic.   It was summer, and the inside of the attic was at  least 175 degrees, maybe hotter.  Sweat instantly began flowing, copiously, out of every pore in my body.  I  suspect that nobody had been in the attic since way before I was born.  Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust.  Dust which billowed up in clouds at my slightest movement, mixing nicely with the thick layer of sweat covering my entire body.  In addition to the dust, the whole inside of the cavernous attic, contained, from top to bottom, billions of cobwebs.  These were not your ordinary tract home cobwebs.  These were manly cobwebs, some I'm sure, made by species of prehistoric spiders, now extinct.   These were cobwebs you could tow a car with.  They enveloped my whole body as I made my way through the attic, mixing with the sweat and dust already covering me from head to toe, to form a thick layer of a substance here-to-fore unknown to mankind, but errilly resembling something from a 1950's Science Fiction movie.  However in my understandable desire to get on the air, I ignored this and plowed through the dust, and cobwebs, still sweating profusely, adding layer upon layer of the stuff as I completed my dipole.}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {Running the coax over to the hole in the attic floor I tossed it down and climbed after it.   Leaving the table, footlocker, and chair, where they were, I ran the coax down the hall to the radio room.  Glancing at myself in the hallway mirror I noticed that I looked a lot like the "Monster from the Awful Ooze".  No matter.  I screwed in the PL-259 as quickly as I could.  Wiping my hands on the near by bedspread, I fired up the rig.  And Thank You Lord, there were signals.  And it was good.  }
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {I tuned around until I heard a CQ, WB7WRI.  Reaching for my hand key I sent my call and waited.  Then, for the second time that day I thought I was having a heart attack.  Back came my call, N6BPL.  Heart pounding, hand now shaking, I answered as well as I could manage, being in the middle of what seemed like a cross between a massive coronary and a brain seisure.  The QSO went on for about 10 minutes. During these 10 minutes I believe that I had several "Out of Body Experiences".  During a couple of these,  I think I saw W6OBB}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {The instant we signed off I started the happy dance.  I also went looking for someone to tell.  This was before I got married and I lived alone at the time.  So I happy danced down the stairs and outside, looking for someone to share my joy.  As it happened the woman next door was washing her car as I blew through the front door.  Forgetting in my excitement that I still looked like the "Monster from the Awful Ooze", I did the "happy dance" over near her car and begun to share with her my overwhelming experience.  I hardly noticed that as I spoke to her of my profound joy, she got a funny look on her face and begun edging toward her front door.   We said, "Goodbye", sort of, and I raced back inside to do it again.  }
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {}
\par\pard\plain\s0\ql\fi0\f0\fs20\i0\b0\cf1\ul0\strike0 {It is now over 25 years later and I am still at it, still having fun, and every now and then still doing the "happy dance".}
}

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